Archive for the ‘Operation’ Category

ARRL Field Day 2009

The North Shore Amateur Radio Club (NSARC) this year operated as a 2F emergency operations centre station. Usually the club organises a field event on Cypress Mountain but this year it was felt it would be better to showcase the communications room at the North Shore Emergency Management Office (NSEMO). NSARC maintains a number stations in the room as part of an agreement with the NSEMO, in effect creating our club station.

This years station, VE7NSR comprised of the following:

Icom IC 756 ProIII with a SteppIR 3 element yagi on 20m.
Icom IC 756 ProII with a inverted V dipole on 40m
Icom IC 7000 with an assortment of yagis on 6, 2 and 70cm.

We also operated the IC 7000 as a Get on the Air (GOTA) station with the callsign VE7EMR. This was radio fed into an N4PC loop operating on 80m.

This was my first field day as a licensed operator so I decided to jump straight into the deep end. I had signed myself up for a nice spot at around 9.30pm on the Saturday evening. Little did I know that I would remain the rest of the night, fortunes swaying with the changing band conditions.

I arrived early at 7.30pm hoping to sit around for a while and soak it all in. I hadn’t operated for over two months as work commitments had meant my weekends were tied up. As no other newly minted hams had showed up my first task was to fire up the GOTA station and score a few bonus points. I’m not sure of the exact amount of points but I believe it was standard scoring per QSO and then a bonus for each 20 QSOs. All the stations were using N1MM for logging but as I was switching the callsign to VE7EMR it was easier to paper-log than create a second instance of N1MM.

In about two hours or so with a few breaks I racked up about 25 QSOs on 80m. The band was poor at first, but around 9pm it came alive as more and more regional field day stations were switching over to 80m with the setting sun. I decided to call it quits on the GOTA station once I had filled out a page of a standard RAC logbook. This was my first time operating on 80m.

Switching to the 20m station things were a lot slower than I expected. The number of QSOs dropped considerably after 11pm. I kept plugging away logging a few Hawaiian and Alaskan stations and a few west US coast stations that had slipped under the radar earlier in the day. At about 12.30am I heard a Japanese station call CQ, he had a queue but an orderly one at that. Running 100w in poor conditions I knew I wasn’t going to bust the pileup.

I moved up the band and had a listen around but it seemed the band had gone long with little or no North American activity. At about 1am I decided to come back to the JA station. The queue was still there so I knew I would have to play the waiting game.

I have no problem pounding on the door of a DX station, but I’m more of a sly fox than a big gun. Its all about timing. Every station is going to call when the DX calls ‘QRZ’, there’s no point calling then. Listen to the rhythm of his QSO’s. Maybe the DX has a QSO that goes awry and the natural rhythm of the QSOs is upset, you should be ready to pounce on this ‘dead air’. At about 1am I bagged JE7YSS.

Throughout the event all of our QSOs were logged in N1MM. To highlight the stations contacted and provide a visual representation of the days proceedings club member Luke VA7LWE had designed a piece of software that interacted with the log in N1MM. His program ‘Visual QTH’ will listen for log traffic that N1MM generates over IP. (N1MM will send log contacts over IP to other instances of the software on the same network so as to keep the logs upto date on each station if running multi-multi, this avoids dupes).

Luke’s software extracts information from the log and correlates it with information from the QRZ.com database. Each QSO is presented as a point on a global map and with distances between your QTH and the station contacted calculated. The software also pulls up a QSL card and website of the station contacted (if available) and displays them in a scrollable list. To top it off the software announces each contact in cw and computer generated voice! We had the software running from a laptop projecting onto a large screen in a room adjacent to the radio-room. This allowed visitors to visualise the QSOs as they were being made. Read more about Visual QTH here.

At about 2am I switched over to 40m on the second 756 station. Things were slow here and once the Asian shortwave broadcasters kicked in around 3am the band became unusable except for a little sliver between 7150 and 7200. Having never operated at this time of day before I decided it would be beneficial to stick around and watch how the bands develop if only for educational purposes.

With sunrise calculated for around 4.20am I expected conditions on all bands to change considerably before, during and after this period. I was especially interested to see how 20m would shape at this time in the morning, but it didn’t. I kept monitoring 20m, up and down the band. Nothing. Around 6.30am some Florida stations were weakly heard but far too weak to work. It took another full hour before I could begin making contacts again, working a few in far southern Florida.

Gradually the pace of the QSOs quickened as the band opened up on the South East US. However what surprised me was how long it took for 20m to ‘warm up’. It was a full four hours after sunrise before the band would be what I would call ‘usable’ at about 8am. Granted I have never experienced 20m at this time of day before but it was a bit of a surprise.

With a only hours left in the event and a QSO hungry shift coming on stream in the morning I decided to call it quits and head for my bed. It was a very enjoyable night overall. I really familiarised myself with the ProIII on this event and I’ve found a comfortable operating zone with the controls I need the most, VFO, AF gain, noise reduction, passband tuning and notch. If every radio only had those I’d be happy.

Number one with a gun……

Well it seems that the poor showing in the Georgia QSO Party (GQP) wasn’t so bad after all. Number 1 in BC for VA7DXC!!!

Or should I say the only 1 in BC!

http://gqp.contesting.com/Certificates.htm

Oh the humanity! 😉

Phasing Stuns

The world’s first Sony AN-1 Phased Active Antenna Array?………..

So I purchased a second Sony AN-1 unit from Ebay last week. It had been in storage for over 13 years and had a lovely set of 1997 expired batteries inside! After a bit of a cleanup of the battery compartment it was ready to go. Funnily enough even though there were batteries in the pre-amp unit the actual antenna it seems had never been mounted outside at all. All of the mounting hardware was still in its plastic?

My original plan was to use the second antenna as the aux/noise antenna in a two element phased array using the MFJ 1025. Having the second antenna also allowed me to do some A/B tests in terms of antenna position on the balcony. The results of these tests were surprising but welcome.

I had placed my first AN-1 in what I thought was the best possible position, as high up and as far away from the building as possible. I usually tilted it out at an angle of about 10-12 degrees to get away from the building.

The building opposite blocks not only a good portion of sky but is also a metal clad structure, in effect a huge RF blocker. However I was aware of these issues already but felt getting the antenna up and away from my building was more important.

The second antenna position is right up against my building and underneath a concrete balcony. This should mean poor reception beneath all that concrete and steel. But here’s the catch. This second antenna position has a slightly clearer view of the horizon, just a sliver.

Hooking up the two antennas to the MFJ-1025 I found that Asian signals were booming in on the second antenna in what I thought was the more compromised location. Most were 2 to 3 and sometimes 4 s-units over the first antenna! Its seems having even a 10 to 15 degree better view of the horizon can trump the attenuation that the steel and concrete provides.

I will continue testing and hopefully find optimum combinations for European and S. American signals. But right now I looking forward to the fun that phasing these verticals will provide.

Next up on the list is whether or not to mod the MFJ-1025 for LF & MF work. The unit is heavily attenuated below 1.8 MHz to block strong BCB overload. I do love digging around in the lower reaches of the spectrum and NDB hunting in the winter months can be quite an interesting challenge. If I modded it I’d probably have to buy a bandpass filter for HF if I wanted to continue using the unit on those bands as well. The other option is to buy a second MFJ specifically for LF work.

MFJ-1025

MFJ-1025

MFJ-1025

A new toy in the shack via the Ontario Swapshop.

The MFJ 1025 is a two antenna phasing unit that works by phasing the inputs of two antennas to either peak or null a signal. The directional characreristcs of phasing the antennas is solely based upon the charecteristics of each antenna i.e. gain, polarity and radiation pattern. Tight spacing of the two antennas allows peaking or nulling of local siganls or noises, further spacing allows peaking/nulling of more distant sources.

I have had great success nulling local powerline and trolleybus noise with the unit, making some of the shortwave broadcast bands listenable once again. Vancouver electric buses run on a 600v system which creates considerable RFI but particularly in the downtown core where numerous lines crisscross. The noise itself is only heard as buses travel nearby and is more than likely generated by the buses own motor. Frequencies in the 40m to 60m bands are most susceptible to this noise, though the noise can be heard on most bands. Rain or heavey moisture in the air can increase the gain of this type of noise considerably.

The 1025 has also allowed me to reduce a new noise source which has only recently popped up on the dial. Spread out between 1.5 mhz and 18 mhz, this odd warbling noise popped up exactly every 67 khz. Some research has shown it to possibly be a touch lamp of some kind. It seems that this is a much more distant noise source as the point of nulling is very narrow and takes a little fiddling on the MFJ. The successfulness of noise reduction on the 1025 is based upon matching the antennas. Antennas with similar polarity and gain will have the most success. A small loop can be handy to use as the second auxillary ‘noise’ antenna as its polarity can be easily changed to match that of the main antenna.

Right now I have had great success phasing my Sony AN-1 vertical with the AN LP-1 loop, though I have also phased my longwire with the loop also. I’d love to get my hands on another outdoor active vertical antenna like the AN-1 and phase them together. So if you know anybody with a similar active antenna unit for sale drop us a line here at va7dxc hq. The overall goal is to create a cheap and cheerful version the DX Engineering dual vertical phased rx array which retails for about $1000! I’m going to try and do it for about $200.

The 1025 also accepts a tx antenna antenna as the main antenna and includes and rf sense and/or switch which disengages and grounds the second rx antenna during transmit. If and when I do get around to getting on the hf bands here the MFJ 1025 will go a long way towards at least helping me hear the stations that I would like to work.

Georgian Russian showdown (not that Georgia!)

So VA7DXC officially went on air, of course courtesy of the North Shore Amateur Radio Club! Previously I had operated on HF using the club callsign, VE7NSR, but today VA7DXC got its first airing. Limited to running the Pro III barefoot (100w) I attempted to get in on the action in the Georgia QSO Party.

I began around 1pm PDT and conditions on 20m were woeful to say the least. Even kilowatt stations were getting lost in the noise floor. The one low power station (<150w), was too weak to work. He would sporadically disappear for a few minutes at a time even though he was still on frequency and calling CQ! After half an hour I had a measly two contacts. I knew it was not to be an easy afternoon.

There was no real use in me calling CQ. Any CQs I answered took a couple of tries so I knew my signal down south was weak. Calling CQ in those conditions would have been fruitless I guess. With the band being crummy it seems a lot of ops just resorted to cw so there was little activity in the phone bands. A magical six stations we worked and boy did I have to work them.

All was not lost though as I managed to work my first DX with my own callsign. I had previously worked a few DX stations during the CW WPX but only as VE7NSR. At about 6pm PDT the cluster showed that a few section 6 & 7 US stations had worked RWØCD in Far East Russia. I had worked the JAs with ease a few weeks previously with 300w during the WPX contest so I felt working this guy was possible on 100w.

He was calling CQ North America but was still happy to entertain calls from Eastern Asia. I listened for quite a while before making a call. Nada. He was booming in 10 over 9, the path was good, I might have been weak at his end but he should hear me right? I kept trying every few minutes for the better part of 30 minutes, nada zip, nothing. I checked the antenna, everything perfect, he was still going 10 over 9 sometimes clipping 20 over. He had already worked a rack of stations in the 6 & 7 US sections and I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be heard.

I gave myself until 7pm to nab him or else I would pack it in and call the day a bust. I kept plugging away and eventually at around 6.50pm RWØCD after a few tries returned VA7DXC! At last! So surprised was I by his returned call that my brain took a microsecond to adjust and then started falling over itself on air. I returned him a 59 (far too quickly) and gave him the QTH which he seemed to copy ok. I then launched into a babble about how great his signal was and how this was one of my first HF DX contacts. Thats all ok on a local ragchew running a couple hundred watts but not so when trying nab Russian DX with a lowly 100W!

He copied none of it and it stalled the QSO a bit. He called for his signal report again and my name, which I had totally forgot to give him first time round! He got it all in the end but his most interesting comment was that my signal was wavering from 55 to 57, suffering a lot of QSB.

It was all quite humbling in the end and it taught me a little lesson about letting the DX station calling CQ lead the QSO where he wants it to go. Give your RST, Name and QTH, thats all, nothing more. Let the DX lead the QSO. If he wants to talk more, let him ask, otherwise its like being back in school again, don’t speak until you are spoken to!